Question for old timers - NAUI OW class, early 1970s

[frndrfoe]

I re-certified with my kids last summer with NAUI and we did it then. My first OW cert was with YMCA in the late 70s and it was a heck of a coarse.

 

[charlier]

After reading Nimrod's post, I thought about a 9 month long NAUI class in 1982. We had swimming test, where only the 8 fastest swimmers we allowed to take the class. From August to October, we practiced drills in the pool. We not only had to ditch our gear in the pool and jump in again and put on, we had to do this in about in open water as well. I do not know how many times we had to dive to the bottom of the pool, ditch our gear and dive down again to put the stuff back on. From sharing regulators, taking our masks off... without BCD or computers.

We had numerous shore dives in Laguna, night dives, kelp dives,boat dives from Santa Barbara, and deep dives in Redondo Beach. We even had to conduct open water rescues through the surf zone. Our instructor told us that he would only give us certifications if we could safely dive with his sister. The most challenging part of the class was navigating to our entry point at Laguna after a long night diver with a moderate swell.

 

[The Laconic]

I have yet to accidentally leave all my gear on the bottom, but then again I'm unusually cautious.

 

[Erich S]

I was certified by PADI in the late 70s and we did the doff and done as part of the OW certification.

 

[tep]

I did that during NASDS certification in 1981. Six of us in class came in to the pool one day to find all our gear in pieces on the bottom. We all had to dive in and surface together with all the right gear on. At the time I had an orange/black Farallon mask so once I had that, the rest was pretty easy. Also I had just bought an At-Pac - an early weight integrated bc with a velcro jacket closure so that was pretty simple also. Not me but here's what that looked like: http://discountdivers.com/pix/seapro.at-pac.bcd.large.a.jpg

Another At-Pac diver! I started with the original with straps and added the velcro jacket when it came out. We also did the doff and don in the pool. That was 1978?. I had so much fun doing it I wanted to do it again. So I did, several times.

 

[boulderjohn]

As University of Alabama student did indeed die doing the exercise perhaps 7-8 years ago. The instructor was SSI. The exercise was not then (and is not now) part of the SSI curriculum, so the instructor added it on her own. She was not physically supervising the incident when it happened. I never heard the results of the lawsuit, but I imagine the insurance company settled very high and very fast.

A couple decades ago a landmark study of student incidents during training revealed that breath holding on ascent, leading to embolism, was the number one cause of student injuries and fatalities. The prime culprit was the CESA. As a result, PADI and most other agencies adopted extremely strict rules on how the CESA must be done, with the instructor very much in control of the situation at all times and ready to intervene if the student is detected holding the breath. I do not know for sure, but I suspect that is when the doff and don left most instructional practices. The student does not have to hold the breath long during an ascent to cause a problem.

I certainly don't know the rules of all agencies, but for most of the mainstream ones, if the instructor is doing the doff and don, it is in addition to the curriculum and against the wishes of the agency. If there were to be an accident, the instructor would have a tough time defending it in court.

 

[BoltSnap]

I'll have no issues or objections if CESA training was eliminated from the curriculum just like buddy breathing was in the late 80's.

 

[RainPilot]

RAID has removed the CESA from the OW curriculum as a cert requirement, it is now a dive elective skill on the last dive and has pretty stringent rules wrt the use of weighted ascent line (88lbs of positive buoyancy must be handled and the surface float must handle 88 lbs of negative). Im not a fan of the CESA and don't do it with my students. It is briefed on but for me the benefit of not doing it is that my students are a lot more focused on buddy orientation as there is no "get out of jail free" option for them.

Back on topic, when I did my NAUI instructor course in 2003, the deep-end doff and don was a requirement for IDC pass. The main benefit I gained from it was the understanding that, no matter how pear-shaped things get underwater, priority one is to get breathable gas in your mouth. After that there is no rush, sort the problems out and think.

 

[Steelyeyes]

Back on topic, when I did my NAUI instructor course in 2003, the deep-end doff and don was a requirement for IDC pass. The main benefit I gained from it was the understanding that, no matter how pear-shaped things get underwater, priority one is to get breathable gas in your mouth. After that there is no rush, sort the problems out and think.

I believe that was the point of the whole exercise. I think doing it prevented more accidents than is caused. Unfortunately we don't track accidents that could have happened but didn't due to good training.

 

[kensuf]

Not sure if this is the correct forum or not.

A friend in her 60s got certified through NAUI in the early 1970s. She said the following was part of the class:

You went down to the deep end of the pool, took all your scuba gear off, and swam back to the surface. You then swam back down, put all your gear back on, and then back to the surface.

She was surprised that wasn't part of the SDI OW class I'm in the midst of (check out dives in about three weeks). I asked my instructors about it today. They said it's not done anymore as students died while doing it. Any clue when that skill was dropped? I was just curious. The thought scared the heck out of me!

Yeah, the Scuba Ditch was part of my NAUI OW course in 1981. So was the skin ditch (freedive to 10-12' of water, drop your mask fins and snorkel, surface, freedive back down and don it).

Those skills were dropped because of students that held their breath and embolized on ascent. The most recent one I recall was a case at a university diving program (I believe it was Auburn, but might have been Alabama) in the aughts.